With one more embrace, Smeaton and Emmeline parted; and, holding up her finger to enjoin silence, Mrs. Culpepper led the young nobleman back to the priest's chamber, closing the aperture behind him. She then returned, at once, to Emmeline's apartment, and, having shut the door, said--
"Run into your bed-room, dear lady, and answer me aloud through the door."
Emmeline did as she was asked, and then the old housekeeper put several questions as to her night's rest, and several matters of ordinary interest, receiving somewhat wondering replies. But the old woman was politic; and she was still speaking, when Sir John Newark knocked at the door, saying--
"Who are you talking to, Emmeline?"
Mrs. Culpepper instantly opened the door, and replied--
"It is I, Sir John."
Her voice was as calm and quiet, her manner as unruffled and staid as usual; but Sir John Newark beckoned her out of the room, and then said, in a low tone--
"I heard a noise as if the entrance to the priest's room had been rolled backward and forward."
"Yes, Sir John," replied the old lady. "By your own orders, I go frequently to see that it opens and shuts easily. I always go early or late; but I thought I heard the young lady moving in her room, and I went to see what could have got her up so early."
Sir John Newark did not speak for a minute, but looked at the housekeeper quietly from under his eyebrows, and she saw at once that he doubted her. She was too much accustomed, however, to meet and frustrate his suspicions to be at all alarmed, though she felt some degree of apprehension, from various causes, when he said, at length--